Limoncello - The Long Alcohol Bath

In this second blog of the Limoncello series we meet Kathe and start the long alcohol bath. Read the first post in this series Limoncello - The Lemons to catch up on the process.

The story really begins last year when Kathe and her husband Bill took a trip to Italy. The focus was not art, history or architecture but it was food. They had cooking classes, they ate and they drank.

This tea towel is a souvenir of their adventure. When they arrived back in Hawaii, Kathe set out on a Limoncello Mission. She searched for limoncello recipes both in cookbooks and on the web. She used her selected recipe and made her first batch for the 2009 holiday season. The second batch begins today.

Kathe takes the lemon zest, that came from the growing grounds at the lanikai green house, and puts them in a large glass jar with a tight fitting lid.

This jar was made for ice tea and has a handy dispenser that will be useful in a few months when the completed limoncello is put in small bottles. The zest from the 20 lemons nearly fills the jar.

This is the part where you have to make sure that you extinguish all open flames. Everclear grain alcohol is made by Luxco. For this recipe Kathe uses 151 proof but is is available in 190 proof. It appears that in Hawaii the strongest proof available is the 151 proof. It does the trick.

The recipe calls for one 750 ml bottle each of Everclear and vodka. But for this batch Kathe used one full bottle of Everclear and for the second bottle a mix of leftover Everclear and vodka. This batch should pack a bit more punch!

After Kathe gives the jar a good shake, the waiting process begins. From her research Kathe has found that the wait should be a minimum if one week but the longer the zest bathes in the alcohol the better the flavor.

This batch of lemon zest will get a four month bath. I brought the jar back to the lanikai green house and will put it in our cellar. I will give it a shake every once in a while. When Kathe returns to Hawaii in few months she will start the next step in the process: Limoncello - How Sweet It Is.

Limoncello - The Lemons

Our neighbor Kathe gave us some homemade limoncello when she came to the Our Better Angels Meet Anew party last month. Limoncello, ice cold from the freezer, erupts with the essence of lemon zest as the alcohol warms the back of the throat.

We decided that after the holidays to harvest some of our Meyer lemons and work with Kathe to make a new batch of limoncello. Her recipe call for the zest of 20 lemons. Our trees were so heavy with fruit we thought the branches would break.

Meyer lemons are not like the Eureka lemons sold in most markets. They have thin skins that are very aromatic and the juice is not as acidic. The reason that you do not see more Meyer lemons in the store is that they do not transport very well. The thin skins do not hold up to the normal citrus packing operations. As a result when you do see Meyers lemons in the store, expect to pay over $5.00 per pound. The large lemons in this tree weigh about one half a pound each.

We figured that if we bought Meyer lemons for this batch of limoncello at our local Foodland Market, eight pound of lemons would have set us back about $40.00. Lucky we have our orchard. We decided to use the table outside to prepare the lemons. We did not want the lemon juice to add any more patina to our Carrera marble counters.

Percy checks out the lemons.

Percy decides that the beauty of the lemons is no match for his eyes.

Here in Lanikai you can cook outdoors in the middle of winter. Brr, it got down to the low 70's this morning. Here I am using a OXO vegetable peeler. Kathe lent me this tool and it works great. She told me not to use my Microplane zester. Her recipe calls for larger pieces of zest.

I still remember the time in New Orleans that the chef prepared Crepes Suzette at the table for us. With an orange on a fork he used a knife to quickly carve a long spiral of zest. The zest was then drenched in Grand Marnier and lit. The flaming essence of orange zest covered our crepes. I remember food highlights for a long time. We had that desert over 20 years ago.

After a short while using Kathe's great OXO peeler, I have a platter full of the zest of 20 Meyer lemons.

We had been thinking of what to do with all the lemons. I decided to go out an buy an ice cube tray and freeze the juice, then Kathe offered to let me borrow her ice cube tray. She thought of the same solution when she made limoncello before.

But first I had to juice 20 lemons. The tool I like is the Williams Sonoma citrus juicer. This tool can adjust for both lemons and limes. The only problem was that the supersized 1/2 pound lemons had to be cut into quarters to fit in the tool.

The lemons yielded close to 3 quarts of juice. We will have to fill this tray 3 or 4 times to create our Meyer Lemon Juice Cubes. They will add a touch of summer to our long winter here in sunny and warm Lanikai.

We will freeze the lemon pulps on a tray and then keep them in the freezer as well. Toss one in the garbage disposal for a fresh lemon scent.

Tune in for the next posting: Limoncello - The Long Alcohol Bath.